courtesy Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator
Designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the Eastern Parkway in Louisville, Ky., served as the test site for this research project. The goal was to improve the experience for all users and modes of transportation on the parkway.
As Mike Sewell, a lead engineer with Louisville, Ky.–based Gresham Smith, relished his 2019 bike trip across the Netherlands, he wondered if he could quantify and correlate his emotional response to specific places, and if the ability to objectively detect where people feel stressed or comfortable could be useful in planning and design.
Sewell enlisted colleagues from Gresham Smith’s tech innovation unit to develop a patent-pending empathic data collection tool that works by comparing two datasets: geolocation data, as recorded on a smartphone or smartwatch; and the wearer’s heart rate, which can serve as a biomarker in stress analysis.
Courtesy Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator
In emotionally stressful situations, the human body accelerate the production of adrenaline. This autonomic response, a form of emotional stress, is distinct from physical stress. Emotional stress can be good (eustress) or bad (distress), but the researchers assumed for the context of placemaking, that the preferred state is one of homeostasis.
Not all stress responses reflect the environment, Sewell notes; a person who is exercising, running late, or receives an angry text message, for example, could show an elevated heart rate unrelated to spatial design. Memories can also display in the data as psychological stress: “I was exhibiting remnant stress in a location where I was hit by a car a year ago,” says Sewell, a bike commuter.
The solution, he says, is to gather larger datasets. “The more users we have, the more we can eliminate those [statistical] outliers.” Biometric data should also be cross-referenced with data from surveys, user interviews, and direct observation to understand its significance.
I see a lot of stuff [pitched], and I haven’t seen anyone saying, ‘Oh, we want to map emotional data,’ which I thought was pretty cool.
—Juror K.P. Reddy
Still, Sewell believes geolocated heart-rate data will allow one to corroborate “good design”—or the absence of it. The technology could improve the design of transit spaces and intersections, potentially reducing accidents, as well as hospital and airport environments.
The prototype works smoothly, Sewell says, but Gresham Smith is strengthening the platform—in which users opt to participate—to “handle lots of data very quickly, normalize the results, and improve the automation behind the scenes.”
Courtesy Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator
The team debugged its platform by using data from a member's daily bicycle commutes to and from the office. The heat map highlights areas of elevated autonomic stress, which include intersections with automobile traffic and, more interesting, areas of personal significance to the user.
Courtesy Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator
The tool's measurements of autonomic stress, on a scale of 0-100, appear to not correlate to physical exertion stressors. As one might expect, heart rate (measured in beats per minute) increases with elevation of the commuting route, and speed increases with descents in elevation, but autonomic stress remains relatively stable. This suggests that the platform is successfully isolating emotional (autonomic) stress from physical stress.
Courtesy Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator
Pre-design strategies to collect information and data included a town hall-style public forum and workshopping tour.
Courtesy Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator
Top: Results from an online community survey asking for locations of features, information, and perceptions. Middle: Results from a stakeholder on-site survey about parkway features and user experience in terms of comfort, safety, and the setting. Bottom: Crash data from the Kentucky State Police, mapped onto the parkway.
Courtesy Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator
Results from a working workshop on a local parkway in which participants wore chest straps to capture their heart rate data.
Project Credits
Project: Empathic Design Process
Location: Louisville, Ky.
Design Firm: Gresham Smith’s Studio X Innovation Incubator . Mike Sewell (principal and project lead)
Graphics: Gresham Smith . Phillip Galbreath, Josh Duensing, Ben Baden
Special Thanks: Keith Besserud, AIA (Studio X director), Amanda Sapala (testing and messaging)
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14th Annual R+D Awards
From 90 submissions, the jury picked seven entries that are scalable, thought-provoking, and promising in achieving a more equitable and healthy built environment.
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Award: ADUniverse, an App to Increase Housing Access
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Award: Empathic Design Process Aims to Identify Successful Environments Through Data
A bike trip across the Netherlands inspired lead engineer Mike Sewell and Gresham Smith's Studio X Innovation Incubator to improve design by quantifying emotional response.
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